Soft murmurs pass back and forth between Emilia and her mother, and I’m unable to decipher what they’re saying. And it pisses me off.
Reaching for her upper arm, I tug. “That’ll be all of that.”
When she’s on her feet, I realize just how small she is. A dainty little princess to break. That’ll be fun.
“Where’s your suitcase?”
“The foyer.”
“We’ll pick it up on the way out.”
There’s an overlapping of goodbyes and I-love-yous as Emilia and I leave, but her mother’s voice bleeds through the noise. “When will I see her again?”
It’s never been my intention to keep Emilia from her family. I see no value in separating them, but that’s something I’ll keep to myself for now.
Continuing to walk forward, I don’t look back. “You’ll see her when I decide I want you to see her.”
I’m pleased when I manage to get her into the back seat of my car without a bunch of carrying on.
“Where to?” Sal asks.
“Home.”
“Yes, sir.”
During the drive to my house, I don’t say a word to Emilia. I want her fear to escalate to the highest level possible. And I believe I’m successful as I listen to the sound of her rapid, unsteady breath filtering through the silence.
She takes a final deep breath and blows it out slowly through pursed lips when Sal parks the car inside the garage. I’d love to know what’s going through that mind of hers right now.
“Welcome home, Emilia.”
No response from her.
No surprise from me.
I fetch her suitcase from the trunk, and she follows me through the house as I lead her upstairs to the bedroom. Our bedroom. “You’ll get the full tour tomorrow. Right now, you and I have some loose ends to tie up.”
“What kind of loose ends?”
“You’ll see.”
I place her suitcase on the bench at the foot of the bed and point at the door to our left. “That’s the bathroom. There’s a pregnancy test waiting for you on the vanity. When you’ve finished, show me the results.”
“I don’t know how to take a pregnancy test.”
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Of course, I can.”
“Follow the directions on the box.”
“Why are you making me do this?”
“I have to be certain that you aren’t pregnant with Moretti’s bastard.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“Then take the test and prove it.”
“Fine.”
There it is again. That flash of anger in her eyes.
That’s it. Come out, angry princess. I want to play with you.
She marches into the bathroom and shuts the door with a firm thud. A brave little princess she is to do that under my roof.
Several minutes tick by, and she emerges from the bathroom. “The directions say it takes two hours for the results to appear.”
“I’m aware.”
Two hours. What shall we do while we wait?
She crosses her arms, looking around my bedroom. Avoiding my eyes.
“Come and sit next to me. I won’t bite… unless you’re into that kind of thing.”
“I’m fine where I am.”
“I’m not asking.” I pat the bed. “Sit beside me.”
She does as I tell her, but the scowl on her face lets me know that she isn’t pleased about it. “Happy?”
“No.”
“You’ve gotten everything you wanted. What do you have to be unhappy about?”
“Our union should have been a joyous occasion. A beautiful wedding where our friends and families came together to celebrate our marriage.”
“A marriage between us was never going to be a joyous occasion.”
“It could have been, but you chose to make things difficult and unpleasant. That means I was forced to do things I would have preferred to avoid.”
“I know the specifics of how you murdered Nic. You took pleasure in what you did to him.”
“Yes. I rather enjoyed it.”
“Only someone evil could admit that.”
I expected her to bring up Moretti sooner or later, but hearing his name on her lips pisses me off more than I anticipated.
“Would you like to know what his last words were?”
She looks at me a moment before answering. “No.”
“You really don’t want to know what your beloved boy said to me while he was lying there in a pool of his own blood dying?”
“I doubt anything you tell me would be the truth. And I know what Nic’s last words to me were. Those are the ones that I’ll always hold dear inside my heart.”
There’s my confirmation. Marrying Moretti wasn’t about not marrying me. She truly loved him.
“Suit yourself. If you can live without knowing what he said about you, then I can live without telling you.”
“I can live with it. The question is how do you live with yourself after brutally taking the life of an innocent man?”
“Moretti wasn’t innocent. He tried to take what belonged to me.”
“Contrary to what you may believe, I have never belonged to you.”
“We were promised to each other by our grandfathers. Betrothed. I was told my entire life that you were to be my wife.”
“It’s 1978. A betrothal between us when we were children should never have happened.”
“But it did happen. And you will always belong to me whether you like it or not.”
One of her brows lifts. “Unless that pregnancy test proves that I’m carrying Nic’s baby? You won’t have me then, will you?”
I had hoped that Emilia’s Catholic faith, or maybe Nicolò’s fear of Alessandro, had persuaded them to not have sex. I see now that any hope I had was in vain.
The thought of Moretti putting his filthy, inferior hands on my betrothed enrages me. But what’s even worse is that she let him. She wanted him to touch her and he did. Now, she could be pregnant.
I can’t handle it.
I’m so pissed off that I don’t trust myself to be in the same room with her right now.
I get up with the intentions of leaving, but I stop when I hear Emilia’s low chuckle. Moving to stand in front of her, I lean down until we’re so close that I have to blink a few times to focus on her eyes.
She doesn’t blink.
She doesn’t cower.
She stares right back at me.
“I’m going to do you a kindness, which is very out of character for me, and I’m going to leave this room. While I’m gone, I’d suggest that you get on those little Catholic knees of yours and pray very hard that the pregnancy test you just took is negative. Or we’re going to have a huge problem on our hands.”
7
Emilia Bellini
Unless that pregnancy test proves that I’m carrying Nic’s baby? You won’t have me then, will you?
The expression on Luca Rossini’s face when I said those words was priceless. I laughed out loud, not to myself as I should have, but I couldn’t help it. It was the first time that I’d had the upper hand with the bastard, and I enjoyed it. But I see now that toying with him for my own pleasure isn’t the safest thing for me to do.
The look I saw in his eyes was murderous. He looked as though he was thinking about putting his bare hands around my neck and squeezing the life right out of my body. It’s a look and a warning that I won’t soon forget.
I’m unable to resist lying on the bed after the restless night I had. I close my eyes with the intention of only resting for a little while, but Luca is standing over me when I open my eyes again.
“Wake up, princess. Time to read the verdict that will dictate what I do next with you.”
“It’s been two hours?”
“It has indeed.”
I sit up and hang my legs off the side, taking a moment to finger comb my hair.
“Stalling?”
“No. I’
m ready.”
He walks ahead of me and stands aside at the door. “You spent the last two hours sleeping instead of on your knees praying. That isn’t the action of an unmarried woman who is worried about being pregnant.”
“Because I’m not worried. I’d love nothing more than to be pregnant with Nic’s baby.”
That’s not a lie. For one, it would put an end to this nonexistent betrothal that Luca believes still exists between us. And two, I’d give anything to have that special piece of Nic growing inside me.
I flick my hand in the direction of the test. “The absence of a brown ring in the mirror is a negative result. Go on and look.”
“You don’t want to have a look for yourself?”
“I don’t need to. I already know the result.”
He steps forward and looks down. “Negative.” A slight grin tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I’m relieved I’ll never have to question the paternity of my son.”
“What son?”
“The one we’re going to conceive before I marry you.”
“Why would you think we’re going to do that?”
“I need to know you’re fertile before we marry.”
“No. That’s not the way.”
“I can’t divorce you if you’re unable to give me heirs, which means I’d have to kill you. Can you not see that I’m doing you a favor by giving you the opportunity to prove your ability to bear children before we’re married?”
This is what he considers a favor?
“If you do this and I don’t conceive, my fault or not, everyone will know. I’ll be unfit for marriage after you’ve had me.”
“That ship sailed a while ago. You’re lucky I’m still willing to have you after you’ve given yourself to Moretti.”
Is he kidding me? “I’m lucky?”
“Many women would be happy with being my betrothed.”
Then they can marry the bastard because I sure as hell don’t want him.
“You’re Catholic? Devout from what I hear. Am I safe in assuming that you aren’t on birth control?”
“I’m not.”
“Which is it? You’re not Catholic, or you’re not on birth control?”
“Yes, I’m Catholic. No, I’m not on birth control.”
“Good.”
He goes to the nightstand, taking out a mirror and small bag of white powder. “Just so you know, I’m not at all happy about getting Moretti’s sloppy seconds.”
“That’s a disgusting thing to say.”
“Not half as disgusting as you spreading your legs for Moretti while you were promised to me. Didn’t you know that you were supposed to remain pure for me, not whore yourself out to a soldier’s son?”
“I didn’t whore myself, and Nic was far more than a soldier’s son.”
He pours white powder on the mirror and taps a razor through the substance.
“Is that cocaine?”
“Yeah.” He stops and looks up at me. “You’ve never seen coke? Never tried it?”
“No.” Because I’m not a moron.
He returns to breaking it up with the razor. At least that’s what I think he’s doing. “Good. Keep it that way.”
“Why would you care if I tried it?”
“Pregnant women shouldn’t do drugs.”
“We’ve established that I’m not pregnant.”
“No, but you’re going to be very soon.”
He leans down and uses a rolled bill to suck a white line up his nose. “Ah, that is some good fucking stuff.”
“You’re an addict?”
“A user. Not an addict. I do a line when I feel like it. I can take it or leave it.”
This has denial written all over it.
“Why are you doing it now?”
“To celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
With his coat and tie already shed, he reaches for the top button of his shirt and unfastens it before moving on to the next button. “Finally having you beneath me after waiting so long.”
“You snorted cocaine so your conscience wouldn’t get in the way while you rape me.”
He stops unbuttoning his shirt. “Whoa, princess. Before we go any further, let’s get some fucking things straight. First of all, I don’t have a conscience. I do very bad things, and I do them very well, so I’m perfectly comfortable with what’s about to happen here. Secondly, nothing about this is rape.”
“You may not be holding me down and forcing me, but my choice has been taken away.”
“You have a choice. You can say no to all of this and walk out of my house right now if you’d like. I’m not holding you hostage.”
“You’re giving me the choice to leave and be killed or stay and be tortured?”
He chuckles. “Hey, I didn’t say they were great choices.”
I can’t kill this man if I’m dead. “I don’t choose to die.”
“Not eager to join Moretti?”
“You’re a horrible human being.”
“Are you giving this horrible human being consent to have sex with you?”
Am I?
“Yes.” I’ve never hated that word more than in this moment.
“Say it.”
Now he’s just rubbing salt into my wound. “You have my consent.”
He returns to unbuttoning his shirt. “Say all of it together.”
“You have my consent to have sex with me.”
He grins. “That was a lot easier than expected.”
Peeling away his shirt, he tosses it across the foot of the bed and stands with his hands on his hips. It’s impossible to not notice how chiseled his chest and arms and abdomen are.
He wants me to notice. That much is clear.
“I’ve heard that cocaine gives you limp dick.” I haven’t actually heard that. I just want to take a jab at his manhood. Attacking his ego is the only way I’m able to hurt him right now.
A deep chuckle rumbles from his chest. “You’ve been badly misinformed.”
He grins and then goes to the stereo, turning on the radio. “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult is playing. God, I hate that song. Despise it. My sister and I argue about it all the time. She says it’s a love song because it’s a story about a love affair that transcends death. To me, there’s nothing romantic about a song with reaper in the title.
Luca increases the volume until it sounds like Blue Öyster Cult is performing a concert in the bedroom.
“Do you have to play that so loudly?”
He smiles and some—probably most—women would find him extremely handsome. I might think so as well if I could see him as anything other than the monster he is.
“The music is to drown out any sounds coming from this room. I won’t have everyone in the house hearing what transpires between us.”
What’s he afraid of? I’ll scream? I’ll reject him?
I know I shouldn’t push this dangerous man, but for some reason I can’t resist the urge. “I’m not going to scream if that’s what you’re afraid of. After being with Nic, I assure you that you don’t have the capability of making me do that.”
His chest roars with laughter. “Challenge accepted.”
Challenging him is only going to make this harder on me. So why do I keep doing it?
He removes the throw pillows from the bed and tosses back the bedding. “Are you going to take off your clothes, or do you need me to do that for you?”
I can’t bear the thought of him undressing me. “I’m fully capable, thank you.”
The bastard has all of the control, but we are equals in one aspect. For entirely different reasons, we both need a son. What he doesn’t realize is in giving me one, he advances himself one step closer to death. Thinking of that end result will get me through this ordeal.
I should be praying for strength and mercy and fertility as I slowly undress, but I can’t bring myself to do so. My faith is withering. It has been since my wedding day. I’ve never felt farther from God tha
n I do in this moment. And never more alone. I have no one.
I want to ask Nic to forgive me for what I’m about to do, but I can’t bring myself to say or even think the words. This is so much more than having sex with the man who killed him. I’m going to try to conceive a child with his murderer. It’s the ultimate betrayal, and I’m not worthy of Nic’s forgiveness.
Luca watches me remove my blouse and then my jeans. I recognize his intent stare for what it is: another intimidation tactic. And it’s working.
I unfasten my bra and allow the straps to fall from my shoulders. I grip it as though it’s my lifesaver, and I’ll drown without it.
I have to do this.
I have to let him do this to me.
This is for my family.
He’s standing by the bed, naked, and still watching me. My eyes betray me by glancing at his erection.
Oh God. It’s big. This is going to hurt.
“Stop acting as though you’ve never done this before.”
Maybe I’m acting as though I’ve never done this before because this is my first time.
I want to scream those words at him, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he will be the first man to have me.
He’ll figure it out soon enough.
I should have slept with Nic. At least then my first time would have been special. It would have been with the man I love.
Why did I ask Nic to wait until we were married? Such a stupid idea.
I drop my bra and Luca’s eyes move to my breasts. “Well, those are disappointing.”
Reaching up, I cover myself. I have small breasts. I know I do, and I don’t need him to humiliate me by pointing out that fact.
Again, I know I shouldn’t, but I retaliate the only way I can. “Nic loved them. He couldn’t keep his hands or mouth off of them.” Looking at his erection, I laugh. “If anything is disappointing, it’s that. Your dick is tiny compared to Nic’s.”
I don’t know how Luca gets to me so quickly. It’s as though I blink and he materializes in front of me. Scowling.
With his hand around the back of my neck, he yanks my face to his in one smooth motion. His eyes, shades of green and gold that I’ve never seen on another human being, are glaring at me. They’re both beautiful and haunting.
“Not another word about the things you’ve done with Moretti. In fact, don’t say his name in my presence again. Understand?”
Waiting for my Queen: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 4
